Mozart at the Gateway to His Fortune

by Christoph Wolff (Norton)

In this engrossing study of the last four years of Mozart’s life, Wolff argues against the common conception that the composer’s mysterious death was “foreshadowed by, and reflected in, some characteristics of his late work.” Though Mozart struggled during these years with almost constant insolvency and a string of personal tragedies, the end of his life was not, Wolff writes, “a time determined by resignation, hopelessness, and desolation” but, rather, a “new beginning.” In 1787, a lucrative and prestigious sinecure from Emperor Joseph II reinvigorated him. The innovative and prolific activity that followed this—in 1791 alone, Mozart completed twenty-three major works—suggests a restless composer “looking ahead,” and not one arriving at a “sense of closure in his art toward the end of his life.” Wolff perhaps exaggerates the effect of the imperial appointment, but his book yields rich insights into some of Mozart’s most important music. ♦

Sign up to get the best of The New Yorker delivered to your inbox every day